Women's role in fairy tales Vs. Women in 2009

   Women's roles in the ancient time, used to be housewives and doing nothing but just taking care of their husbands and kids. The most original fairy tales we read in class been wrote long time before; few centuries earlier than today. The women descripted in the failry tales were all based on the role of housewives and they don't received much rights in their life. The women in the fairy tales also need to obey their husbands, and if they don't they will consider as not doing the wife's duty and will receive some kind punishment. The example that shows the women have to obey their husband in the fairy tale is the wives of Bluebeard. His women got punishment of death because they disobied Bluebeard, and their bodies were hung on the wall after they got chopped off.

  Another example in the fairy tales that used to descript the stereotype women in the old time is "Cinderella". Cinderella is the youngest lady in the house, and she deos everything that older people in the family asked her to do, included her step-mother and step-sisters. She can't do anything to save herself, but she can find a "Prince Charming" guy to help her out. Using man's power to rescue women is one of the stereotype example that using to represent the idea of man is the dominated in the society back to old time, and women can do nothing except wait for the men to help them.

  Is that kind phenomenon still happen in 2009? Probably not. Today's femelas were became more indepedent and they were equal to men's statues in today's society. A lot femelas in today's soceity were also doing the professional and public jobs, such as lawyer, doctor, and officer. The roles of women had totally been changed; from weak and waiting for men to save them in the old times, to today, females became strong, professional, well educated, and handling heavy duties. Women just became same as men in the year 2009, and they can do everything that men can do.

Red Riding Hood

  Recently, I found a video clip of Little Red Riding Hood from YouTube, this video version is most similar to the Grimm's version that we read for class, but there also are some differences.

 
  In the beginning of this video clip, the grandmother gave a red cap to a little girl, and then people started to call that little girl Red Riding Hood. In Grimm's version, it didn't mentioned where is that red cap came from. Another difference between these two versions is that , the wolf acts very silly and he is useless in the video clip; animals that smaller than himself are making fun on him, such as the squirrels were throwing things on him. The wolf in the video was also scared to the human; when a woodcutter yelled at him, he is not dare enough to say anything back to that woodcutter. In Grimm's version, the wolf is such a smart guy, and he doesn't scare to anything.

 
  The similarities between this video and Grimm's version of LRRD is not found until almost the end of the story. Almost toward the end of the video, the wolf ate LRRD and her grandmother sucessfully, so he took a nap after he ate them. Then there is a hunter walked by and he figured out that the wolf ate two people by hearing the sound he hearded that is calling from inside of wolf's stomach. The hunter cutted wolf's belly and saved two ladies. LRRD decided to put rocks into wolf's belly and she killed the wolf by drown him to death with the rocks that she putted into his stomach. All the events that happened toward the end of the video are exactly same as the end of the Grimm's version of "LRRD"; hunter saved the ladies, LRRD putted rocks into wolf's stomach, and wolf got drown to death with those rocks inside his belly.

Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYzCnQJOWWI

"Damsel in Distress" and "Prince Charming"

The idea of "Damsel in Distress" and "Prince Charming" are well connected with each other in either today's society or ancient days; because someone is a damsel in distress, it encourage her to find the prince charming person to rescue; or because some fail to find her right price charming person, it leads her into the damsel in distress position. In the fairy tale, Cinderalla was living as a maid in the family, and she does everything that her step mother and her sisters asked, and she received no respect and money for the works she done. Cinderella is living as a damsel in distress postion, therefore, she wants to find the "Prince Charming" person to rescue her from that kind taugh living environment.

The definition of the "Prince Charming" can be vary, and it is really depends on one's social statues and living position; such as, a rich woman's "Prince Charming" guy might be the one who will love her with all of his heart, and a poor woman's "Prince Charming" might be the one who will bring her wealth. The "Prince Charming" for Cinderella can be define as the guy who can give her more power and help her to receive more respects from the people around her.

The ideas of  "Prince Charming" and "Damsel in Distress" are the essential elements in the society. The "Damel in Distress" can be seen as the objective for us to find the things better, and "Prince Charming" can be as the goal for us to fight for, and they both providing us the energy to find the things that we want to get the most.

Disney and the society

Today, Disney became one of the biggest producer in the animation industry in the world, its products reached very wide and connected to all kids in the world. How Disney impacts today's kid: positive or negetive, is one of the issue that most parents and scholars disccuss about in today's society. Pocahontas is one of the most successful animate made by Disney, but there are some elements are very imappropriate to kids to watch and very offensive for some cultural group.; Such as, in this animate, people doing  "Wowowo" as to represent they got excited in Indian culture. This is learned by a lot kids, and they did it to the people who they think they are the Indians. This became very offensive when kids did "Wowowo" to "Indians". In the reality, the real Indian may not doing "Wowowo" in the live, but this wrong concept was created by Disney, and all today's kids believed "Wowowo" is part of Indian's life.

In Disney's animations, we don't often see the main characters in black (expect "Princess and Frog" that will come up by this December). The majority main characters in Disney's were white, but not other colors, so it became very doubtful for people to think Disney doing the races in its industry. In order to ripe off this "races" element, by the end of year 2009, Disney came up with an animation "Princess and Frog", which made the Princess black in this movie.

Some parents complained on Disney because it is so fascinate by today's kids. Kids want their parents to buy them the Disney's products, and parents think Disney led them to spend more money for unneccessary things.

Cinderella

Currently, I watched a video of "Cinderella" on YouTube, and this clip is a short version, the whole whole thing only lasted for 9 minutes. This clip version of "Cinderella" is very close to the Disney's version; in both versions, the carriage that carried Cinderella to the ball was transformed from pumpkin, and the horses that pulling the carriage is transformed from the rats, and the cat of Cinderella was transformed into the servant who driving the carriage. By the time Cinderella is about to transform back to the farmer girl role, she rushed out from the ball and left her glass shoe on the stairs, that is also exactly happened in Disney's version.

And comparing this version to Grimm's of "Cinderella", there are some differences, such as: in Grimm's version, there is no animal or any other creatures been transformed. In Grimm's version, after Cinderella left the ball, the prince chaseing for her in a very wild way, such as, the prince chopped down the tree because he saw Cinderella jumped into there. In this clip, the prince didn't did anything after she left; he just simply keep the shoe that Cinderella dropped on the stairs. In both Grimm's version and the clip that I found, the prince is using the shoe that he got from the Cinderella to testify to find Cinderella.  The ending for the both stories are also very similar; Cinderella married to the prince. But in this clip, two sisters didn't got punished, and in Grimm's version, two sisters of Cinderella  got their eyes picked out, and living in blind for the rest of their life.

Over all, this clip is very similar to Disney's versions, and it doesn't has much violence events happened during the story. Comparing to Grimm's version, this clip is better one for today's kids to watch.

Link to the clip:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgT7-W4tCqQ

Comic Vs. Article

When we reading through the articles, the better way to understand the story is to imagine the pictures of the events in the head while reading through it, and doing it can make the story become more sense. But sometime when we reading something that we think is less interesting, then we would probably not want to imagine the pictures in the process of the story, and by this way, the story will become less enjoyable. And in today society, we developed comic, which is depicted pictures for every scenary of the story, and along the pictures it has the written conversations attached to them.

Reading through this fables, I really enjoyed the process of story has the pictures along with it, the visual aids made the story became more colorful and smooth. And for some visual learners, the stories that has more images will help them to understand better. And also, reading the comic is faster than reading the stories that full with text; since the comic is majority covered with pictures, so we won't spend that much time to make our own pictures of the story in our head.

Even though the comic are easier to read and it can be done faster, but the text-type-story also has its strengths. Such as, to read the stories in the all text format, the reader has to convey the contents from the story to images, and combine all this images to make the process of an event.

So, the positive site of the comic is, it is easier to read and can be done faster. And the positive site for story in full text style will require the readers to come up the pictures of the story along when they are reading, and it will help them to explore reader's imagination ability. But with the culture changed, the new generation prefered on the easier way to read the stories, so, the comic became more popular for young kids in today's society.

The stories of swan

Related to "The Swan Maiden" that we had read, I found an another fairy tale that is also about the story of swans from YouTube, and I compared that clip wtih the version that we read for the class.

In the clip, the king married to a witch, and she transformed the princes to the whild swans after she got married to the king, and those wild swans flew away from the castle for escaping from that witch. So far, the difference between two version is: the swans were transformed from the male charaters in the clip, and the swans that we read in our book is transformed from the female characters. After those wild swans flew away from the castle, the only one sister of those princes who is remainded in the human form ran after them and looking for them and to get them back to the castle. At this point, there is a similarity between the two versions: in both version that is someone waiting for the swans to return. And in the both versions, the swans were able to transform back to the human form at sometime point; the females swans in the book we read were able to transform back to the human form after they took their swan feather dress off, and they can do it at anytime they desired , and the princes swans can only and have to return to the human form after the sunset.

The ending of the version that we read for the class is, the peasent told his wife (who is transformed from swan) how he had won her (which is, he stole her swan feather dress), and then as soon as she had her dress back from him, she flew away for forever. And the ending of the clip, that princess made soem dresses of with the special magical plant and wearing them to her brother and broke the curse, and that witch dead after her curse broke.

The Three Little Pigs

Recently I found a clip of "The Threee Little Pigs" from YouTube and there is more or less a little bit different from the versions that we read from our book. First, in this clip the pigs left home because they wanted to be independent from their parents. In the beginning of their adventures, each of them built themselves a house, and each pigs built their own house with different materials; the first two pigs were too lazy, so they chose the material that is easist to biuld; one of them built it with straws, the other one made with woods. And the last pig is the hard worker, he not just wanted to build a pretty house but also wanted his house to be solid and stable, so he did with bricks. So far, here was not much differences from the story we read in the class compared to this clip.

Soon after they finished their houses, the wolf came to "visit" them. In this clip, the wolf destroied both houses that built with the straws and woods by blowing them off, and two pigs from these two hosues ran toward the brother for help; but in the book, it mentioned the first two pigs were ate by the wolf after the wolf destroies their houses. Turn back to the third pig in the clip, which built his house with bricks, and the wolf is not able to blow this off because it built so stable, therefore the third pig saved his two brothers with his brick house. Now, lets turn to the version that we read in class, in this version the pig that built with brick house called Little Red Riding Hood for help with a phoen, and then she brought a shot gun killed the wolf, after she killed the wolf she used that wolf's skin to make a coat and wearing that on herself, and that is the biggest difference between two versions.

Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUYjAm5WSok

Pretty-face people do what they want

Is that really the people who has the pretty face can receiving more "rights" to do the things they wanted to do, and they having more respects from the soceity than the people with the ugly face? The answer applied to this question for the most of time is "Yes". First, let us to see some examples in the real life: When we saw a hot lady is in rush and she is asking for a ride, in the most men's perspective, they would probably take that lady to the place she needs to go. But if we switch that hot lady to another one who has the ugly appearance whoud any men still going to help her out? the chance became rare in this kind situation. Another example, if a lady knew there is a super handsome man who likes her so much and wanted to date her, then that lady would probably wanted to accept his invitation and go out with him. But when we transformed that men into the characteristics of bowl-head, short, and fat, then the chance for this man to get acceptance became rare too.

This phenomenon is not just happened in everyday's life, but also revealed in many fairy tales. One of the example is from "Beauty and the Beast"; Beast did everything Beauty asked: Beast let her to go home to visit her sick father, and sent her with pretty dresses when she went home. Would that also happened to Beauty's sisters if they were the one who came to exchange for their father's life? the result might be opposite; her sisters might get eat up by Beast on the first day they arrived at the castle. Another example in the fairy tales can also represents the idea "pretty face people do what they want" is from "Cinderella"; In the story the prince was so fascinated to Cinderella, and he went to every household to verify who is Cinderella with the shoe she left. So, let's say if the Cinderella is not pretty at all, would the prince still going through the whole process to find her? The answer is "it could never happens"; the prince might forget about her right after the ball if she is not pretty at all.

With all examples that we see from everyday's life and in fairy tales, we can prove one thing: this world is not fare, the pretty face people received more power and respect than the ugly people do.

Fairy tale in children's market

The fairy tales in today is not just simply the stories that used to entertain children anymore, but they might also be the first literature material that we using  to teach our kids today. Today's kids are very familiar with most of the fairy tales and the characters in the stories, and they became a inevitable part of most children's life; the cartoons that children watch in everyday's life and the books their parents read for them before they going to bed were all based on different fairy tales. And before children getting to know the more mature charaters and materials, the characters in the fairy tales were always considered as deals of the children; children copying everything the charaters did in the story, such as: if the color of the dresses that wearing by Cinderella is blue, and the kids who are the fans of Cinderella, then they would probably asking their parents to buy them clothes in color blue rather than the others, because they also wanted to be "Cinderella".
Todays kids are so familiar with the charaters in the fairy tales, and the objects that printed with the images  of those charaters are extremely fascinated to the kids. One of the example that I saw is, once I went to shop in Walmart, and there also is a mother who is leading her daughter to buy some shcool materials, and when her mother asked her which bookbag she would like to pick, she told her mother she wants to get the one with the SnowWhite's figure printed.

After many revisions made to the old versions of fairy tales, the contents in today's versions of fairy tales became more adoptable for the kids. And in today's society, the fairy tales were not consider as just the stories that we used to read for childrens before they going bed, but more likely, the fairy tales became the most closet "friends" of todays kids, and also might be considered as the first "lectures" that giving to today's kids.

Beast Vs. the beast

What kind creature would come up to your mind when someone difined someone else with the word "beast"? Normally, we would think the beast is the creature that with ugly appearance, evil-mind, doing the creepy things, and both the inner heart and outter configuration of a "beast" should be bad.

Beast in the "Beauty and the Beast" do received a ugly and most hateful outter appearance, but after we observed Beast in the story for a little more, he is not as bad as we thought about him. He just simply have the bad appearance, but the his heart and actions were very graceful, and even the most people who have the human-look can't do the samething as he did; such as: he sent money to the father, and helped Beauty to accomplish her wishes. So, Beast doesn't contained the conditions that a real beast should have, therefore the word "beast" should not be used to define Beast.

All stories should have both protagnists and antagnists, and if we agreed with that Beast is not the bad guy in the story, then who should be the real "beast" in the story? For my personal opinion, I think the beast in this story should be two sisters of Beauty. The reason that I said that is because two sisters contained such evil-spirits; they were not just jealous at Beauty, but also once in the story, they set a trap to kill Beauty (they asked Beauty to stay home with their father for little longer so Beast would eat Beauty up).

So, the definition for "beast" should be just upon on one's outter appearance, but it is more important upon to one's heart; if a person who has such evil mind, then on matter how pretty that person is, he or she has no doubt is the person that should be defined as the "beast" or "monster".

Female characters Vs. Male characters in "Beauty and the Beast"

In Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast" the author designed the characteristics for the characters that around Beauty for: more positive characteristics toward the male, and negative characteristics toward the females; such as the father, Beast, and three brothers were all designed with gentleman, brave, and thought-for-the-others characteristics. And the female charaters, such as two sisters were designed with jealous, pretense, and  evil-mind charactisterics.

The men figures, which designed with the positive characteristics in the story, offered greatly caring toward Beauty, such as: in the story, the father willing to sacrify himself to change Beauty's safe; the rich men in the town willing to marry Beauty even she has nothing left after her father's businesss fail; three brothers willing to kill Beast to save Beauty; and Beast willing to starve himself  instead to eat Beauty her when she broke her promise to Beast. But Beuty refused to accept all good offers for her, and saved Beast by granted her promise. These phenomenons reprenting the admires that men offered toward Beauty, and responses from the Beauty to those men were as the representation of her virture and gracefulness heart.

The female charaters (excluded Beauty herself) were doing exactly opposite things as the men's did towart Beauty. Beauty's  two sisters' mind were fullfilled with selfishness, stinginess, and jealous, and some examples in the story can represent these bad charateristics of two sisters'. First, when their father's business fail, two sister not just not doing any house-works but also laugh at Beauty that she doing the things as a maid; when their father about to have some money, two sisters asked for the fancy stuffs, but Beauty only asked to a piece of rose; and when two sisters figured out Beasty treated her better than their husbands treated them, they came up with an evil-plan to prohibit Beauty return to the castle, and wanted Beast to eat Beauty up.

With the contrast between male's positive characteristics and females' negative characteristics toward the Beauty,  Beauty's virtue and her benevolence heart presented more clear and stronger in the story; by the admires she received from men, and by compared her kindness with her sisters' evil-mind.

Disney's version Vs. Beaumont's version of "Beauty and the Beast"

After viewed a clip of "Beauty and Beast" that I found on YouTune (this clip is a part of the Disney's version), I found some very significant differences between this version and Beaumont's version of "Beauty and the Beast". The biggest different thing in Disney's version compared to Beaumont's version is that, in Disney's version, Beast is not alone anymore, he living in castle with his servants, and beside himself, his servents were also transformed into the "monster-look" appearance; they were transformed to the candle, clock, and cloth-hanger. Also in Disney version, Beast acted so shy; he was not brave enough to dance with Beauty, and  his servants had to encourage him to dance with her. Also in this film Beauty acted more actively than Beast; Beauty walked toward Beast  and invite him to have a dance with her.

In the film I also saw that, Beast's hand was shaking while he is eating with a spoon, and that gave us some clues about what is the original way that Beast is eating; he probaly not used to eat with silverwares, but rather to eat like the way that animals is eating- graping food with the hands. And Beast's eating-style helped to shape the story became more realistic and detail, and which were the elements that ignored in Beaumont's version.

Also in Disney's version, it added songs to the background of the play; it made the scence more "colorful", and the story became more lively.

Link to the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeoPtz0F2Ck

The real "gold-digger"

In the story "The Pig King", the queen gave a birth to his son who was born with the pig skin blended, and that pig skined prince  not just has the pig appearance but also inherited exactly same pig manners; dirty and wild. Although the pig prince is so ugly and acted so taugh(every time the pig prince returned to home, he alwyas blended with dirt), the queen still offered a strong caring toward him as all mother does, and she helped him to get everything that he desired. So, one time when the pig prince asked his mother to find a wife him, the queen found him one without delayed. But the first two marriages of the pig princes were not very successful; the first two of the pig prince's wives were thought about to attempt murdering the pig prince, but they got killed by pig prince before they try to kill him.of his wives before they kill him.

Eventhough the pig prince killed two women, but the the queen still tried to fullfill her son's desire without concerning about the safety of her daughter-in-law. So, the queen went to the same family where she got the first two wives for his son and asked for the third daughter in the family also going to marry her son. The prince told the that third girl not to pay regard to her son, but the king and herself, and the queen will offer her all treasures and the whole kingdom when the king and her passed away. The third daughter ignored the tragedy happened to two of her sisters and accepted the queen's offered without delay, and her "gold-digger" mind led her to do everything that pig prince asked her to do without thinking about that pig prince had killed her sisters.

Also because of  her "gold-digger" and selfishness mind, she did not worried about what were happend to her sisters and avoided to give the revenge to the pig prince. And for all those treasure that queen offered to her, she pretended that she loves the pig prince, and that pretense led her to be success in the end; the pig prince turned into a normal human format, and she got everything in the kingdom.

What is more important: inner or outer?

The answer for the question "which is more important between the outer appearance and inner essences of people" is depending on what kind situation we are in, and what type partner that we are looking for; if we want to date someone or find a hot-girlfriend for a short-term relationship, of course, the outer appearance would be the more important. But what if we are looking for someone for a long-term relationship? In this kind case, the people who have the good inner essences would be better; because the people who have good inner essences will treat you with all of their heart in the future, and you would never need to worry they will betray you some day as long as you still love her.

In today's society,  the inner essences and the otuer appearance both have the positive and negative affects and impacts. People who have the nice outer appearance can give a very good first-impact to the others, and has a good outer appearance can lead to a good start point for a new relationship development. But sometime when the outer appearance became too "attractive" then that might affraid some people; when we saw a peroson who has opposite gender from ourselves, and the person is extremely pretty or handsome, then that might be very difficult for us to talk to them, because we don't want to say anything wrong and leave that hot-person with a negative impression about ourselves. And the person who have the nice inner essences and don't have a good outer appearance normally won't able to give a nice impression for the others at the first time, but this kind person's inner essences can be dicovered we after interacted with them after a while.

The story "Beauty and the Beast" is an example that showing the inner essences is more important than the outer appearance, and in the story Beast's inner essences beats his outter appearance; At the first time Beauty saw Beast she really got terrified by his appearance, but after a while Beast treated Beauty with all his heart and did all he might to accomplish Beauty's wishes, the Beauty discovered his inner essences and felt Beast is even better than the people who has the normal huamn appearance, and she felt in-love with Beast because she knows Beast is the true lover she been looking for.

The Beast's trap

In Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast" it mentioned there is a girl in the story who is so pretty and has a pure-mind (the story prefered her a name - Beauty), and she also is so much different from two of her sisters who always wanted to marry either the count or the duke. When people proposed to her she always excused them with the reason that she wants to stay with her father. So, it is very difficult to get her without some special "strategies", and because Beauty cares her father at the most, so Beast used her father as the "bait" to get her. The chance had came, one day her father was returned from the home port and heading back to his house at the country-side. On the way home he met a snowstorm and got lost in the forest, so Beast used bright-light as the signal to direct the father walk toward his castle, and in the castle Beast has already prepared  some food for him to eat and a nice bed for him to rest. Everything was on schedule, and on the second day when the father is ready to leave and he picked a pice rose from Beast's garden as for his youngest daugher's request. Beast went crazy and claimed the rose is his favorite thing in the world and the father should be punish for picking up that piece rose. The plan went very sucess, Beast offered the father a deal: using one of his daughter's life to change his own life; Beast knews his youngest daughter is the only one who would sacrify herself to save her father's life, and she is the only one that  Beast wants. The youngest daughter took the deal and came to the castle for exchange her father's life. So far, Beast's plan still went very smooth and sucessful, after Beauty arrived at the castle Beast treated her with all his heart, and eventually he "conqured" Beauty and married her. The whole process is Beast's trap; from the beginning the father's business fail to the father got lost in the forest and  until Beast marired Beauty were the parts of the process in Beast's plan.

A lesson taugh in fairy tale

The fairy tales that we read earlier in this semester I think they were not the very good materials for today's kids, because those versions contained a lot of improperty things for kids, such as: violance actions, bloody movements, and incest relationships. But when I read the chapter for "Beauty and Beast", I found out some versions for this story are pretty good for today's kids to read, such as: "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich" and "Urashima the Fisherman". These two versions of "Beauty and Beast" taugh a very valuable lession to kids: "to keep your promises".

In "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", the little princess made her promise to the frog said: if the frog can help her to find the golden ball that she got lost into the deep river then she would do whatever the frog is asking her to do. But when the frog did what she asked and found the ball for her, she jus ran away and forgot about the promise she made. The king was so angry with the action that little princess commited, and commanded her to what she had said to the frog. Fortunately, with king's assistance, the princess do everything in frog's desire, and eventually the frog turned into a prince and they had a happy ending.

The version "Urashima the Fisherman" taugh the same lesson-"to keep your promises" as the "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", but the ending of this story is opposite from the previous one. In this story, Urashima have a very happy live with an angle in the begining of the story, but when Urashima left the paradise and went back to his village, he figure out the time in his village was passed for three hundred years and his family and friends were no longer exist. Then he broke the promise which he made to the angle and not to open up the box. When he opened the box, everything was disappeared, and the angle left him forever, and he has nothing left with by the end.

This two versions of "Beauty and Beast" taugh us, if we keep our promises we can get everything we want, or if we broke our promises we will lost everything we have.

What attracts woman's heart?

What are be most attractive things for women? money, power, the handsome face, or the guy who loves them gives all his best to the women? In the story "Beauty and the Beast", there were different reasons that the Beauty felt in-love with the "Beast" in different version, and some of the versions the love between the paired lovers lasted forever and some versions it doesn't.

In Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast", the Beasty tried all he might to satisfy Beauty's wishes, and he eventually won Beauty's heart and reached their happy-ending; in this kind nature, the Beauty got touched by Beast's love and care toward Beauty. In "The Pig King" and "The Frog King, or Iron Heinrich", the different "material" was used to attract women's heart; in these two versions, the man figures was apeared very ugly in the begining of the story, but when they took off their "masks" and showed the real face, their handsome face attracted the women's heart who hated those man figures in the begining of the story, and the handsome face became the key element that led those two pairs lover a happy ending. Beside the happy endings there also some examples that show the sad endings, such as the versions of "Urashima the Fisherman" and "The Swan Maiden"; the paired lovers in these two versions were been togethered for a while, but after the men did something wrong through the stories (one in "Urashima the Fisherman" broke his promise, and one in "The Swan Maiden" used a wrong strategy to bring his "wife" home), both of these wrong actions led their wives to leave them and made them stay lonely for the rest of their lives.

Beast Versus Human

When we heard people said the word "Beast", the first image that came into our head is always about some monster-type creature that has the ugly-configuration and evil-mind. And in the reality, we always using the word "Beast" referring to someone who is strong and well-built, and this word is never used to descrip a person who has good manner. But after reading some different versions of "Beauty and Beast", I found a common thing between those "Beasts" in the different versions; the characteristics of those beasts is not samething as what we thought they should be, but those beasts are very benevolent, be very helpful to their women, and contained a lot good human-beings. For example, in Beaumont's "Beauty and the Beast", the sisters of Beauty were always jealous at her prettiness and tried to set her up at any chance they got, but the Beast is the one who is always tried at his best to satisfy the Beauty and he can even to sacrifice himself in order to make the Beauty happier in her life. In this point, the Beast in the story represented more humanity than the humans.

Also I found another point between the stories that interested me; the difference between the way that Beast chasing for a girl and the way human "chasing" for a girl. In the "Beauty and the Beast", that Beast is doing at all his best to achieve that little Beauty, but in the story "The Swan Maiden", that man wanted to marry the swan so bad and he stole the swan's attire and "kidnapped" her and forced her to be his wife. The life is fair, so eventually, the Beauty was got affected by everything the Beast had done and they live happy together, but the swan which was "stole" by that man eventually flew away and left that man lonely forever.

What's behind the door?

In Perrault's version of "Bluebeard", when the lady opened the door which Bluebeard forbided she to go she saw many women's dead hanging on the wall behind that door, and those are the evidences of Bluebeard's secret and his past. Many of other men also hid their secrets from their women throughout the history and even in today's society, but the most things those men hid were not as bloody as the one in the "Bluebeard"; most men will just hid things such as money or another family from their wives.

Perrault's version of "Bluebeard" is definite not a good version for kids to read, so, if we want to revise his version to be more acceptable for today's kid, what would you change those "dead-bodies" to? My idea is to change that room into a trance that connected to anther planet. The reason for this is beacuse, since the story mentioned Bluebeard has a blue-beard which is a very rare and almost non-exist human's figure in the earth, so I will assume he is an alien that from another planet through that door (from many movies we saw, blue color has a very significant relationship with aliens, such as the firm-maker designed alien's blood as color-blue). The idea that making the door as the entrance to another planet where Bluebeard came from is not just help to make this story to be more adoptable to today's kids, but also help children to explore their imagination on science.

Women's Obedience Toward Their Husbands

In the early centuries, women always stand in the lower statues and receive less respection from the society than the men do, and that phenomenon is the men is the one make money and support their family, so the man definite has more power than women in either the household or society. And that is what the story "Bluebeard" tried to explain: people has money get more power than the people who don't, and rich people can do all things they want, and the example for that from the story is: Bluebeard is the one has all money, so he can marry to any women who were much younger than him, and he is the one who alway gave out the order for his women to follow, and if his women disobeyed him than those women will receive punishment from him.

'Bluebeard wanted to killed his wife because she went to open the secret chamber that Bluebeard asked she not to' - is an example that Bluebeard wanted to punish his wife becuase she didn't followed his order. And in my personal opinion, I think she should receive that punishment, because she just got married to Bluebeard and in this is very begining she already started to challenge Bluebeard's power, so no one can guarantee what she will do in the future if she Bluebeard just let her go this time, and Bluebeard will lost his power in the house if he is forgived her at this time.

But with the changed in social institution and culture, women's statues in today's soceity is equal to men's; because today's women received same level education and do the same jobs as men do, and men don't have any more superior status than women in today's society. So, today we don't say women shoud obey ther husbands anymore, but we said the husband and wife should respect on each other instead.

"Curiosity" - Is it good or bad?

Curiosity is one of our human-beings, and the most time the curiosity helps us to explore the things that we interested on and lead us to the sucess. But is curiosity always a positive thing? is there any dangeous behind those curiosity?

The story "Bluebeard" is one of the examples that explained the negative impact by the curiosity. There is a lady who was married Bluebeard, and she was very interesting on Bluebeard's "private" life, and she wanted to explore everything that he hid, specially that thing that her husband told her not to do. One day, Bluebeard needs to go a trip for his business issues, and before the Bluebeard left his house he gave all keys to his wife and told her not to go the chamber which he locked down. With the curiosity on that chamber, she ignored what her husband told her and went to open the door of the chamber in order to discover that is inside, and what secret Bluebeard hid in that room. She got herslfe into the room and found something that really terrified her. And because she saw her husband's past, Bluebeard has to kill in order to hide the secret again and killing her also consider as a punishment for her been not to obey Bluebeard's rule. From this viewpoint, we figured out the curiosity is not alway a good thing and it doen't always lead people to see what they expected, and doing something that is not hoped can always bring people miseries.

Fairy Tales - more than just a story

The original purpose of fairy tales is created to entertain people - specially for adults. But with the time passed and the culture changed, the role of fairy tales in today's society is affected to kids more than to adults.

On this Wednesday, I went to a hair salon to get my hair cutted.

While I'm was waiting for my appointment, there were few kids also in waiting with their parents. The reception area in this hair salon has various types table that offered for its customers, and one type is specially offered for kids. The surface of that set of furniture was printed with many cartoon figures, included Cinderella, Snow-White, and many of others, and this set of furniture also is designed in kid's size. The kids were so fascinated on those "cartoon" furnitures, they refused to sit with their parents and all chose to sit around that "cartoon" table. And under my observation, everytime more kids walked in this salon, the first thing those kids will always do is running toward to that cartoon-printed table.

In today's society the fairy tales became a majority part of our life, and specially affected our kids so much. kids are not just grow up with these fairy tales, but also for the most of kids they learned their first lesson for the life from the fairy tales.

The role of woman

Cleaning the house, taking care the babies, and listening to husband's orders, these are the stereotype duties that women should perform after they got married to the men in to the early age, and it is so normal that a woman became a housewife after they got married, the reason of that is because back to the early age women were lack on the education, therefore women cannot do professional jobs beside the housework, and be a housewife also considered as the virtue of the women back the time. Refer to Grimm's "Cinderella", he depicted Cinderella's role in the family also is a "housewife" that she doing all kinds house work such as cooking, clearning, and taking care of the others. But with the time passed, women in this society received more education, so with the skills thet learned women started to take all kind professional jobs, and women doing a decent job beside the housework are not special anymore in today society compare to the early age, and the jobs and positions that women can do in today such as: lawyers, accountant, police officers, doctors, professors, and more. Cinderella's role descripted in Grimms's story is almost totally disapeared from the most places in the world specially in those well developed countries, and women's "tragedy" is over in today's society because women became more independent and eligible for doing more things same as men.

Prince Charming

The concept of "prince charming" might be very familiar with all girl since their childhood, and all girls is pursue for the man who has the "prince charming". But what is the definition of "prince charming" for girls, and how boys can be defined as they have the "prince charming"? I think the answer for this question can be varied and it is depends how girls think, but how Cinderella defined the "prince charming"? From her aspect of view, since she worked as maid in her household, and treated by her stepmother and stepsister so cruel, therefore she wanted to find a man who is rich and has high status in the society to marry with in order to escape from that terrible situation, so I think the definition for Cinderella of "prince charming" is the man who should be rich and powerful in the society and the appearance of the man just the secondary thing (of course good-looking guy can be added more "bound points" to him), the reason I said that is because since Ciderella has never met the prince in her life so she cannot assumed prince how is the appearance of the prince, but there is no doubt the prince is rich and has absolute high status in the society, so the prince money resource and his power in the society is the primary definition of "prince charming" to Cinderella, and I think that is the reason that she wants to marry the prince.

Smart Woman Makes Mistakes Too

No women would like to share a same husband with others, same as the queen in Perrault's version of "Cinderella", before she died she asked her husband to promise her that he would not marry agian if the other one is not more charming, generous, sweet, and smarter than her, because she think herself is the one smartest and most charming woman in the world and there could not be anyone who is better than her, and this promise that her husband made will keep him single forever after she died. The king kept the promise and seeing for the woman who is even better than his first wife, and he searched every corner in the world but can never find one who can meet the all requirements that his ex-wife set up except his own daughter. The King announced to marry his daughter, and of course this is so wrong that king marry to his own daughter so little princess escaped from her father's kingdom and left to another place where she became a "ugly" maid.

Because of queen's "smartness" and her selfishness, she led her little daughter to live in the sorrow for a while and her husband to live in the loneness for forever.

Who is Cinderella's Father

What! He is not her father? Then who is Cinderella's real father? In Grimm's story, Cinderella's father admitted Cinderella is not his own daughter when the prince asked him does he has another daughter, and he replied to him he has only two daughters and anthoer girl - "Cinderella" is just the daughter of his ex-wife. Well, if he called his two step-daughter's as his daughters and Cinderella is not his daughter, is that means the relationship between Cinderella and her father is even less than the relationship between the two step-sisters and the father, or maybe Cinderella's mother and her "father" had never been married and the father just simply wants to keep Cinderella at his house as a maid.

In the beginning of the story, I was curious why the father doesn't care much about Cinderella, and also he did not do anything to help Cinderella when he saw Cinderella was been tortured by his wife and daughters, and this can explain the everything: because Cinderella and her "father" doesn't related.

The Corruptions in "Little Red Riding Hood"

After I re-read LRRD in the book, I saw some phenomenons that were very close to our today's society in either developed or under-developed nations -Corruptions.

In Italo Calvino's version of LRRD - "The False Grandmother", on the way LRRH heading to her grandmother's house she "paid" the ring-shaped cakes to river and a bread with oil to gate in order to get pass, and we can compare these actions with people who bribed government officers or some people who have power in order to do things and sometime those things might be illegal. Also when LRRH is running away from the wolf, the gate and river leted LRRH to pass but not the wolf because LRRH offered them goods so she got "protected", and this event is very similar to some places that business or civilians need to pay the goods to gangs or government officers in order to receive the protection.

The corruptions are everywhere in the world, but in some places they just hide them better than the others. And I personal had experienced the bribes exist in the society: one of the examples is that once my grandfather was stayed in the hopital for few weeks, and we need to "tip" the nurses in order to get them to take care of my grandfather while he is in the hospital.

Little Red Riding Hood and Pregnancy

It is so hard to image the relationship between a little girl and the word "pregnancy", but in the disscusion we held in the class I figured out there actually were some stories in our reading were implied the relationship between these two elements.

In the early time (before 16th century), based on the most cultures, the son always reveice the heritage from the father after they die, and it is very unacceptable that if the father gave everything to his son who actually not made by him but his wife made with her adultery partners. So during that time period, man has bigger power and control their wives in sexuality issues (because men don't want their wife to have sex with another guy), and the women will get punish if they have affair with someone during that time. Also in the early version of LRRH, author descripted the wolf (implied as the men in the society during the time) has big power and dominated on females. But until later age, in Grimm's LRRH version, the role between the male and female has been changed little bit; he discripted the female received more freedom on sexuality by saying that: LRRH were escaped from wolf's stomach and then put stones back into wolf's stomach and killed the wolf. This phrase pointed out that the power on sexuality is not dominate by male anymore, the female could also pick any male to have sex with even they have a husband at the same time, especially in the modern age.

"Little Red Riding Hood"

"Little Red Riding Hood" is one of the fairy tale that I had

read during the early age of my childhood. By the first time reading it, I didn't realized this tale is that meaningful. And the version I read doesn't contains any sexuality or any bad issues, but in the other versions, they were actully has a lot of negative materials that will affect child's mind.
Such as the early version of LRRH, which is called "The story of Grandmother". In this version the LRRH was actully ask by the wolf to taking off all of her cloths off and lay beside the wolf. And also in this version, LRRH's grandmother were chopped into pieces by the wolf and later the wolf asked LRRH to eat the flesh and drink the blood of her grandmother. I think this is cruel and unnatural actions and is very negative for any children to know.
Also in the "The Story of Grandmother " version, things happened very illogical: in the begining of the story, LRRH were acted as a very silly rural girl that she doesn't know anything and even that cat called her a slut. But by the end of the story she became as a genius (compare to her characteristic in the begining of the story), she escaped from wolf by asked to go outside the house and tied the other side of the rope to a plum tree.